The New Imperium Peace With a Price Story by Greg Schutz Day Ten Outskirts of the Yavin System Aboard the NIS CT9A, 75th Transport Troop 1st Raider Platoon Ready Room 0730 hours Coruscant Standard Time The Lieutenant was actually younger than anyone else in the 1st Raider Platoon was. He was 23. The youngest enlisted soldier was 25, and the platoon sergeant, a stout man named Owensby, was 51. The 1st Raider Platoon of the New Imperium was a hodge- podge of mercenaries, defectors, and civilian sharpshooters. Still, despite their diverse backgrounds, every member of the 'Fighting First' was a damned good soldier. Even young Lieutenant Koch, a former mercenary, could put a laser beam into his target's ear at four hundred meters in the dead of night. And he was considered a pretty poor shot by most of the others in the platoon. Lieutenant Tasmon Koch reviewed the plan once more, determined to spot any flaw, if there was one. The insertion was simple enough - the Yavin IV facility had poor sensor coverage for an installation of such importance, and they could be dropped off a hundred kilometers from the facility without being detected. After that, they would ride their speeder bikes to within two miles of the installation. The last two miles would be stealthily covered by foot. And then the snipers would take up sniping positions, the rifle squads would group up, the E-Web teams would assemble their cannons, and they would begin. Lieutenant Koch expected his team of 45 men to wipe out the facility, containing over 200, within four minutes. Anything longer than that would be an insult to the Raider name. Tasmon smiled. Indeed, the plan was an excellent one. They would begin in two hours. The Depot Corridor 57, Level 13 Fourteenth Deep Sector 1030 hours CST The boy looked up, straight up, an impossible distance to where the stars that were actually artificial lights glimmered. He was on Level 13 now, the lowest level of The Depot that was currently inhabited by civilians. Below Level 13, The Depot was little more than a collection of twisted, broken piping, pooling water, and a few oil refineries. It was a dark, unpleasant place. On Level 13, though, things were rather pleasant. It was a maze of yellow and blue piping, which had originally carried refined oil, but now only carried Depotian streams to and fro. The water on Depot was purple - once stained by a special strain of oil that had long dissolved into harmless translucent purple pigments. The boy nimbly slid over a thick, slippery pipe full of burbling stream water. After sliding off the pipe, he fell a good fifteen feet into a pool of that strange, translucent purple water. The boy knew the terrain around here, though. Chances were he'd hiked this route sometime before. The water was cold, but not uncomfortably so, and it provided welcome relief from the 100+ degree temperatures that were the norm this far below The Depot's transparisteel surface. Corridor 57 was a four-mile wide passageway that was, at higher levels, used as an expressway for civilian and military traffic. The floor of Corridor 57 was a tangled mess of piping and purple rivers. Most people would get lost down here and would starve to death if they didn't know how to properly hunt the indigenous tortoises that lived in the area. But the boy wasn't most people. He knew The Depot's secret places and hidden areas like the back of his hand. Arron Phife pulled himself out of the water and into a sheltered cranny by the water's edge. A small trout studied the boy's dripping form from beneath the surface. Phife pulled a waterproof bag out of the small backpack he was wearing, unzipped it, and checked the contents. Yes, the antediluvian revolver stored inside was still dry and in working condition. One had to carry a gun just about everywhere when travelling alone on The Depot. Before its fall, the Empire had attempted to annex The Depot. They had ultimately lost the resulting conflict, which had claimed both of Arron's parents, but who knew how many of the fanatical, brainwashed commando troops still lurked somewhere within the giant spacebound oil refinery's depths? Arron rested for a little bit longer in the little cranny, enjoying the feel of the cold wind coming from the air duct at his back. He thought he'd traveled at least four miles along the floor of Corridor 57 since he'd set out that morning. By now it was early in the afternoon, and Arron was getting hungry. But he'd only have to go another hundred meters, he guessed, before he would reach his destination. He scaled the metal wall of the pit he'd fallen into like a spider, climbing to the top of the wall, which stuck out above the surrounding terrain like a mountain over the plains. No wonder their sensors hadn't been able to find the objective's presence, Arron thought. Whoever he was, he'd chosen the most tangled sections of piping in the entire Corridor to hide in. Was he hiding? Maybe, maybe not. It wasn't Arron's job to analyze the man's motives. His job was simply had to find him. He crouched on top of the metallic ridge, listening. No, he wasn't really listening. The sound of burbling water, the distant humming of dozens of civilian airspeeders, and the occasional mating call of a giant tortoise made listening with one's ears a difficult thing for those without the most acute senses. But Phife wasn't listening with his ears. He was listening with his mind, listening for the sounds of another person nearby. He heard two of them, and both seemed to, like him, have the strange ability to "hear" with the mind. Phife wondered if either of them had heard him. Not that it mattered too much. One of the ones he heard had to be the man he was looking for. Luke Skywalker had met with this man, Kyrel Thoms, only a week ago, and both men had expressed interest in the possibility of Kyrel studying at Skywalker's Jedi Academy on Yavin IV. Then, two days ago, Kyrel had disappeared. Depotian investigators suspected a kidnapping of some sort, and had followed the clues to here, Level 13 of Corridor 57. So they had sent Private Arron Phife of the 1st Pathfinding Squadron, 1st Special Purpose Infantry Regiment (SPIR), to see just what had happened. And here he was, near enough to his objective to hear it. It would all be over in a few short minutes, for better or for worse. He slid off the metal ridge, his booted feet hitting the ground below more than just a little too loudly for his liking. He heard one the presences, the more hostile one, recoil. Now Arron knew he'd been found out. He grabbed his handheld radio off his belt. "Mother Bird, this is Little Falcon. I've got a probable hostile guarding Objective Gold. Please advise." The response came quickly. Arron identified the voice as belonging to his good friend and squad leader, Corporal Kane Howell. In the background, he heard the roaring engines of a high-powered airspeeder. "Little Falcon, this is Mother Bird. The Lieutenant suspected that. The rest of the squad is en route, ETA two minutes. Hang tight until then." The hostile presence was moving closer. Arron could almost hear it with his ears now. He removed the waterproof pouch from his pack and said one more thing into the radio before turning the device off. "I don't have two minutes, Mother Bird. If I wait around for you, you'll get here just in time to clean up the mess my guts'll make on all this pretty yellow piping. I'm engaging. Over and out." "But - " was all Corporal Howell was able to say before Phife turned off the radio. A noise echoed towards Arron from up ahead. That sound was unmistakable. It was the scrape of metal on metal - the sound of an energy clip being pressed into a blaster rifle. Private Phife removed his pistol from the waterproof pouch and checked to make sure it was loaded. Then he pulled back the hammer and flipped off the safety. A little bit of pressure on the hair trigger and he'd send his aggressor a little something he liked to call "a message written in pain." A shadow played across the metallic wall up ahead. Arron paused. Whatever created the shadow was hidden behind a right- angle turn in the narrow metal canyon he was in. There were no nooks or crannies to hide in, he saw upon quickly glancing around. There were only two directions to go - forwards or backwards - and backwards wasn't an option. He heard with his ears the sound of an unguarded footfall on metal, and the wild, unshaped shadow flitted across the wall again. He was two feet from the right-angled turn now, and he suspected his opponent was just as close. If they both rounded the corner at the same time, Arron quickly decided, they would probably both die. Therefore, he had to take action, do something unexpected. Arron crouched down low and rolled out into the turn. He was on his back when he caught the first glimpse of his adversary - a tall man dressed in some sort of black jumpsuit. Instants later, a blaster bolt zipped by. It was aimed too high, though, and it went right over Phife's crouched body. Still on his back, Arron took quick aim. He knew he'd only get one shot. He'd have to make it count. There was no time to perfect his aim. When the barrel of the revolver seemed to be pointed at the man's chest, Arron squeezed off a shot. The big pistol bucked violently in his hands, and Phife quickly pulled back the hammer again for a second shot. Another bullet was not needed, though. The man in the black jumpsuit was lying on his back in a pool of dark red blood. Arron didn't bother to study the condition of his adversary; the absence of a pulse was evidence enough. Down the corridor a little ways was the slumped form of Kyrel Thoms. The blond, fortyish man was quite obviously heavily drugged. A holocamera was trained upon him. Arron suspected that he had interrupted some sort of crude interrogation. The heavy thrumming of a military transport airspeeder drew Arron's attention. The boxy, armored transport ejected a dozen thin black cords, and armed soldiers slid down them moments later. It was Corporal Howell's squad. Kane Howell followed the rest of his squad down, dropping right next to where Phife was standing. The Corporal gestured towards the body in the black jumpsuit. "You should've taken him alive, Private. We still don't know who kidnapped Thoms, or why." "Sorry, sir. But maybe when Thoms has recovered from all this, he can give us some information. And how much do you want to bet that the New Imperium has something to do with this?" The squad medic, Lance Corporal Harlan Fallon, was crouched over Thoms, performing a quick check on his condition. "Shit," the young doctor said after a few moments. "We can't treat him." Howell spun around, barely avoiding knocking Phife down in the strained confines of the corridor. "What do you mean?" Lance Corporal Fallon didn't look up. He was slowly moving a small electronic device over the would-be Jedi's head. "I've never seen this before, sir, but I have read about it. Force drain of some kind. This guy's in a kind of coma we can't get him out of." "Then what's the holocam for?" Phife blurted. "You can't interrogate a guy in a coma." "A Jedi could," Fallon replied, uncertainly eyeing the body in the black jumpsuit. Arron looked at it too. Actually, it didn't look very much like a jumpsuit anymore. It looked more like robes of some sort. Phife began to speak. "You're not suggesting that - " Corporal Howell interrupted him. "That's immaterial now. Harlan, who could wake Thoms up?" "No one," Fallon replied. "A Jedi could speak to him subliminally, but I doubt he can regain consciousness." "Then there's only one thing to do," Corporal Howell said. Louder, then, he announced: "Everyone, pack up. I believe that we'll be escorting Mr. Thoms to Yavin IV very soon." "That's a four-hour trip," Lance Corporal Fallon said. "I'm not sure Thoms can last that long. Due to the severity of the Force drain, his vital systems are becoming unstable." "Then we'll have to move quickly," Howell replied. "Double- time, everyone!" Yavin IV Jedi Academy 1215 hours CST Luke Skywalker awoke from his troubled sleep with a start. Something was wrong, very wrong. He threw off his thin bedcover and folded his legs in front of him. Luke pushed everything out of his mind and tried to return to his subconscious, tried to recover the awful dream he'd just had. Never before had a sleeping dream brought such stark terror into his heart. He could practically taste his own bitter fear coating the back of his throat. Something was going to happen, something so horrifying that, that... ...That his own self would not let him recall it. The dream was veiled from him. It was a thin veil - he could almost see what he so feared - but the horror was not quite tangible. It was still the nameless, shapeless, fear of something otherworldly, some invisible demon bent on destruction and possession. His eyes snapped opened once more, and it felt like he was waking up all over again. What was it? What was this awful knowledge, so horrific that he could not allow himself to recall it? Luke tried to convince himself that it was just a bad dream, but as he dressed, he could not shake the feeling that incredible destruction was about to befall him. He felt that as if he was standing on a beach while a giant tidal wave surged up over him, ready to make him and all that he knew cease to exist. But he was looking inland, away from the wave, and though he could hear it, he couldn't see it. He couldn't see what it was made up of. Somehow, he had to turn around and lay eyes upon the monster, but he didn't know how. He pushed a button on the wall, and his door slid open. He stepped into his sandals and emerged into a long hallway, the far wall replaced by a transparisteel window that revealed the lush green jungle of Yavin IV spread out below. The deep red planet of Yavin was just emerging over the far horizon, coloring the nearby river equally red. The river was as red as blood, Luke thought. It seemed that then, to his eyes, the river really was blood, foaming arterial blood. He knew suddenly, with a start, that it was the blood of him and his students. Now he was turned around, looking at the giant wave, but his eyes were nearly shut. He could barely see the wave through his eyelashes. He had to open his eyes. What could possibly kill everyone at the Jedi Academy? Lieutenant Tasmon Koch crouched low in the deep undergrowth by the river's edge. His blaster rifle had been checked out for combat before they'd made the drop, but now he was checking it out once more. He couldn't afford to take any chances. His briefer had made it quite clear that failure was not an option in this mission. Sergeant Owensby, the platoon sergeant, materialized out of the bushes without a sound. "How much longer?" Tasmon asked him. "One of the E-Webs needs a little work," Owensby told him. "Give us ten minutes and we'll have everything straightened out." "Ten minutes, then," the Lieutenant replied unhappily. "But any longer than that and it'll be our heads." "Understood, sir," Owensby told him. Then the sergeant disappeared soundlessly back into the forest. There was the sound of gentle laughter from across the river. Tasmon looked up with a start. Two human Academy students, one male, the other female, had made their way to the water's edge, somehow without attracting Koch's notice. Obviously, they had learned a thing or two about Jedi stealth. Tasmon smiled wryly when he saw what the two students proceeded to do. They were obviously very much in love, enough so that swimming nude in the water was not embarrassing to them. Tasmon thought, intently watching the girl's lithe form slide out of her clothing, The sound of lovely, lilting music coming from the Academy's main hall broke Luke away from his dark thoughts. He realized for the first time that day that he was hungry. Maybe a little bit of food would help him think. He had to figure out just what was going on. Alone, Luke made his way downstairs to the main hall. A few students were eating at their tables, a few others milling around. Most of the Academy's population was asleep. Luke had given them the day off, after an exhaustive study of Jedi stealth yesterday. Tionne was sitting on the stage at the far end of the great hall, playing an exotic stringed instrument that Luke hadn't seen before. The Jedi Master waved to her, got a smile in reply, and made his way to a food synthesizer. He ordered a small omelet and a glass of mixed fruit juice. Luke found an unoccupied table in a dark, dusty corner of the hall. He sat there and nibbled away at his omelet, taking an occasional sip of juice. The wave had nearly reached the shoreline by now, and Luke had done nothing to stop it. Of course, how could he stop it if he didn't know what it was? And how could he find out what it was? His own mind, somehow traumatized by what the dream had shown it, had locked away the secret of this horrific tragedy in a subconscious box that could not be opened. Luke knew he needed a different way of solving the mystery presented to him. "Hi, Uncle Luke," said a tentative voice from the other side of the table. Luke looked up to see a young boy, about thirteen though he looked younger, with sandy blond hair. "Morning, Jacen," Luke replied to his nephew, Jacen Solo. "You ready to make the trip back to Coruscant?" "All packed," Jacen said proudly. "I don't think Jaina is, though." Luke smiled. The visible show of emotion never reached Luke's eyes, which were focused on other things. Jaina Solo appeared in Luke's field of vision. She said something to her twin, then to Luke, but he didn't hear. Upon seeing his niece, his vision had blurred with tears, then doubled as a tremendous headache crashed down upon him. Luke suddenly knew that the wave had reached shore. In a very short amount of time, it would crash down upon Luke and his beloved Academy. His vision snapped back into focus, and he saw Jaina, blessed with the same athletic, attractive figure and facial features suitable for a princess that her mom had. She looked older than Jacen, who had the kind of babyface looks that would make him seem eighteen well into his forties. Luke blinked, and when he saw them again, he saw them as they would be, if he didn't do something - dead. They would very soon be dead if he did nothing. He had to get Jacen and Jaina off Yavin IV. "Kids," Luke said, forgetting his breakfast and standing up, "make sure all your things are ready. There's been a change of plans. I'm calling Lando. He'll get you guys out of here real quick." The snipers were good this morning. The boy died first, and his dead body fell over onto his would-be lover. Tasmon had saw that the girl was about to scream, and that would've wrecked everything. If a couple of Jedis got to their lightsabers before the Raiders got into the Academy building, the whole attack might be ruined. But before the girl could make a sound, a blaster bolt from a sniper hit her squarely in the throat, vaporizing her vocal cords and charring her lungs. She hit the ground and tried to scramble back towards the Academy building, but a second shot caught her square in the middle of the back. The energy from the shot vaporized her heart, killing her instantly. "Move," Tasmon said simply. He waded into the swift waters of the river, followed by thirty-five other men. The rest of the platoon's force were either snipers (who would hold position for now) or members of the E-Web teams (who were crossing the river at a bridge half a mile upstream). It would be over very soon now. Four minutes, and there would be no more Jedi. "Say again, Luke," the image of Lando Calrissian on the holoscreen said. "You want me to come down right away?" "That's right, Lando," Luke said. "I have reason to believe that the security of the Academy has been compromised. I want you to take the LADY LUCK down here from Yavin and get Jacen and Jaina." "Compromised?" Lando asked. "How so?" Luke sighed. His headache was getting worse. "I'm not sure, Lando, but unless you get here quickly, I'm not sure if Jacen and Jaina, or anyone, will survive." "I'm on my way," Lando said. "And I'm bringing a squad of my security troops with me." The connection was cut. Kyp Durron, as he did every morning, walked comfortably along the bank of the river that, at one point during its continent-long journey, flowed past the Jedi Academy. He was about a half mile upstream from the Academy now, nearing one of the few bridges across it. The birds were singing, the grass was dewy, and the air was warm. Kyp couldn't think if a way to improve the scenery. And then, suddenly, as he reached the bridge, Kyp was struck with a huge wave of fear. He knew, suddenly, that something was very wrong. He was being hunted. He was in someone's sights. Kyp sensed the attack coming, and he became a warrior in action. In one fluid motion, he dropped to one knee, slipped his lightsaber off his belt, and ignited it. A high-powered blaster bolt sliced through the air, riding on crackling electricity. It passed directly through the space where Kyp's head had been instants before. It was followed by a torrent of similar shots. Kyp recognized the weapon firing at him as an E-Web heavy repeating blaster. He saw the weapon, and its crew, hidden in the undergrowth on the other side of the river moments before they corrected their aim and fired at him. Kyp brought his lightsaber down in a whistling arc that sent it directly into the path of the blaster bolts. It was a brilliant Jedi deflection. Unfortunately, Kyp Durron forgot about one of the inherent problems with the E-Web heavy repeating blaster. Due to the immense power of the energy the gun was firing, the shots tended to become spread out over a dozen square inches when the gun was in full automatic fire. This inhibitor to the gun's accuracy was usually considered a flaw in the design, but Kyp Durron would not have died if it weren't for this flaw. Several blaster bolts missed Kyp's lightsaber and caught him nearly simultaneously on both sides of his chest. Kyp's entire collection of internal organs were burnt to a crisp instantaneously. Kyp died so quickly that he never felt the Force rush out of him. His body was so hideously mangled by the amount of energy that hit him that he was nearly unidentifiable. The two E-Web teams made their way across the bridge a few seconds later. "One down, one hundred ninety-nine to go," a gunner joked before moving on. Luke crashed down onto his knees in the middle of the hallway. He felt the sudden flood of the Force rushing out of a powerful body and back into nature. A Jedi had just died. It only took Luke a few moments to recognize the missing persona as that of Kyp Durron. "No," he moaned, a few stray tears working their way down his cheek. "No, Kyp, no, no, no." But the death of Kyp Durron told Luke something. This awful, horrifying wave he'd envisioned was not just one big thing, it was made of many small parts, and it had to kill individually, instead of killing all at once. Luke fully opened his eyes, and he saw the wave. The wave was of the New Imperium. The wave was soldiers, intent on killing them all. "R2," he said to the astromech droid sitting next to him, "get to the nearest computer terminal and sound a general alert. We can beat this wave, if we face it readily." R2D2 beeped a few times and rushed off as fast as his wheels could carry him. Jaina and Jacen appeared from around the corner at that moment, heavy bags containing their possessions hanging from their shoulders. "Let's get to the landing pad now," Luke told them. "Lando will be here in just a few minutes." "Uncle Luke," Jaina said, using a demanding tone of voice that Luke had heard from her mother many times before, "what's going on?" At that moment, the general alarm klaxons sounded, followed by a pre-scripted message Luke had long ago recorded but had never expected to hear used. "Academy students," the recording said simultaneously over dozens of loudspeakers, "the Jedi Academy is under attack. The proper authorities have been informed, but there is no immediate hope of relief. There is no way to evacuate. If possible, get to a weapon and be prepared to use it. If not, hide as best you can. If the Academy falls, escape into the wilderness. Help will come for you, eventually." Luke looked into his terrified niece's eyes. Her question had been answered. From the south exercise field, Luke heard screams and the sound of blaster fire. The Raider platoon emerged from the undergrowth near the river and entered the south exercise field at a full run. Two dozen potential Jedi Knights were practicing or meditating at the moment. From the Academy building several hundred meters distant, Lieutenant Tasmon Koch heard alarms, and the unmistakable voice of Luke Skywalker. Several students looked up in alarm just in time to see the soldiers shoot at them. They didn't have time to scream. Those who weren't targeted immediately by the Raiders did, though. They screamed at the top of their lungs and didn't stop until they were silenced by force. A single Trandoshan student managed to escape the bloody carnage at the south exercise field. He had nearly made it to the safety of a grove of trees surrounding the Academy building when a sniper's blaster bolt caught him in the left thigh. The bleeding reptilian fell down and lay there, screaming in pain and rage. His lightsaber was still in his room, and now he had no hope of getting to it. Tasmon ran up to the screaming Trandoshan at a full sprint, stopping just out of clawing distance. He then leveled his blaster at the creature and squeezed the trigger, blowing chunks of charred brains onto the well-kept lawn. The Raiders entered the Jedi Academy building itself just seconds later. Luke, Jacen, and Jaina reached the landing pad just as the Raiders entered the temple. The LADY LUCK was visible by now, a tiny fleck of metallic silver in the morning sky. It was only a short flight from Lando Calrissian's mining depot orbiting Yavin to the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV. Luke heard more screams, these from inside the temple itself. He swore loudly, then drew his lightsaber. "Stay put," he told the twins. "When Lando gets here, tell him and his troops that the fighting is in the temple itself. I have no idea how many we're up against, but I can feel at least thirty. Can you remember that?" "Sure," Jacen said shakily. Luke was about to run back into the temple when he heard Jaina. "What do we do if the soldiers come out here while you're gone?" she asked. Luke paused, then tossed his lightsaber to Jaina. "Block their shots with this, and then run. Use the Force." Alone, unarmed, and unafraid, Luke ran back into the temple. Tionne and a group of about fifty students were in the main hall. They had ignited their lightsabers, but Luke sensed they were unwilling to attack the soldiers. No, not unwilling, just scared. "Everyone!" Luke cried. The students and Tionne turned to look at him, then started shouting questions. Luke ignored what they had to say, instead concentrating on what he would say. "We outnumber the enemy," he told them. He was fairly sure of that much. "They have blaster rifles, but our lightsabers can deflect their shots. You haven't learned how to do that yet, but there's not much to it. Just anticipate the attack and let the force guide you." "Where's your lightsaber?" Tionne asked him, her fear readily evident in her voice. "It's in good hands," Luke assured her. "A Jedi can be powerful unarmed as well, you know." "This'll help you," a human student named Garin said. The boy, barely fifteen, tossed a tiny pocket blaster to Luke. The Jedi Master readily accepted the weapon, despite the knowledge that it was ineffective beyond the range of a few meters. It felt good to hold a gun, no matter how small. "We can beat them if we counterattack," Luke told his students, who were now his troops. "Let's go!" Screaming in fear and anger, the group of two Jedis and forty-seven students rushed out of the main hall and towards the fighting. Cilghal, the Mon Calamarian Jedi doctor at the Academy, held the lightsaber (specially modified for use with her flipper- like hands), at the ready. She could hear the screaming and shooting coming from around the corner just ahead. The soldiers would be upon her any second. She knew that by standing her ground she was practically putting her own signature on her death certificate, but she also knew that she had to take down as many enemy soldiers as she could before she fell. Besides, there was no death in the Force. She would do her part in life, and then she would live forever outside of life. A few panicked students rounded the corner at full speed, running away from the advancing soldiers. Cilghal ignited her lightsaber and took up a fighting stance. She would slash the soldiers as they came around the corner. A black-uniformed man suddenly appeared around the corner. Cilghal brought the lightsaber down upon his left shoulder. She felt just the barest resistance as the weapon sliced through the soldier's armor and then parted his flesh. The soldier was halved. Cilghal brought her lightsaber up as quickly as possible, and it sliced up through the barrel of another soldier's rifle. Behind this soldier, she saw many more coming around the corner. She stabbed the lightsaber towards the soldier nearest her, the one whose rifle she'd destroyed. His head left his neck and hit the ground with a wet thud. Cilghal's luck ran out just then. Sergeant Owensby drew a bead on her oversized domed head and blew it open with a single blast from his rifle. The Mon Calamerian died instantly. Luke and Tionne's group of counterattacking students arrived at the opposite end of the hall just in time to see Cilghal fall. The students recoiled at the sight of the Academy doctor's destroyed body lying next to a severed head. Luke could feel their revulsion overpower their fear momentarily. The revulsion disappeared, though, when the first blaster bolt tore down the hallway towards them. It struck Tionne's lightsaber and reflected towards the shooter, striking him in the thigh. The soldier went to the ground, screaming and holding his leg. The students shouted their approval louder than ever, and Luke felt himself pushed forwards as they began to advance. "Stay calm," Luke shouted. "Control your anger! Use the Force!" His words were lost in a new flood of blaster bolts. Tionne and the student that had given Luke his pistol, Garin, expertly deflected the shots back towards the soldiers, hitting two more of them. Luke sensed for one giddy moment that his group of students could win this battle. For an instant of pure joy, he knew that everyone in this group could become a powerful Jedi. The one boy, Garin, could become a Master the likes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, if he survived the day. The moment ended when a soldier with Lieutenant's bars on his shoulders stepped around the corner at the other end of the hallway. Upon seeing him thirty feet away, his own injured soldiers writhing at his feet, with fresh troops at his back, Luke saw a man with true potential to train in the ways of the Force. Unfortunately, this man had already allied with the other side. "We planned for this!" the Lieutenant shouted. "Remember Owensby's plan! Squads 1 and 2, fire volleys. Squads 3 and 4, use your pistols!" The fresh troops behind the Lieutenant pushed forwards to engulf him. Half of them were carrying the standard blaster rifles, the others had projectile-firing pistols. Luke fired in vain a shot from his tiny pocket blaster. The shot was so weak that, after travelling thirty feet, a simple layer of clothing probably could've stopped it. The blast hardly made a mark against the soldier's armor. And then, the soldiers with blaster opened fire as fast as they could pull the trigger. The sheer amount of fire coming at them caught Garin by surprise. He let his guard down and a shot blew his head wide open. Luke grabbed his lightsaber from him and did his best to block as many shots as he could, though they were coming to fast to deflect all of them back towards the shooters. The surprising amount of incoming fire was too much for the students. Most of them panicked. One boy slashed his lightsaber over to block a shot, and the uncontrolled swipe took off the right arm of the girl next to him. She screamed as her arm fell to the ground, still clutching the lightsaber. The arm rebounded off the ground and rotated, slicing through the girl's legs at the ankles. Still alive, her body collapsed to the ground until a blaster bolt hit her in the roof of her open, screaming mouth. The boy, shocked by what he had started, never saw the blaster bolt that hit him square in the chest. In that way, the ranks of Luke and Tionne's students began to disintegrate. They could have probably held together, though, if it wasn't for the pistols. The two squads of soldiers with pistols opened fire. Luke saw, using the Force, one lightning-fast round dart towards Tionne. He saw her expertly move to block it as if it were a blaster bolt, and he saw the bullet go right through the lightsaber as if it weren't even there. The bullet hit Tionne in the sternum, directly between her breasts, and crashed through the heavy bone there. It mangled her heart beyond repair, and she died in seconds. Luke fell hard to the floor as bullets whistled through the space he'd occupied moments before. Instead of hitting him, the waves of bullets crashed down upon the students behind him. "No!" Luke shouted at the top of his lungs. "No!" Using all the power left in his body, Luke reached out and created a Force shield that blockaded the hallway in front of him. Bullets and blaster bolts crashed into the invisible force field. The soldiers were shocked, and they began to unsteadily fall back. "No!" the Lieutenant shouted. "Put down more fire!" The soldiers slowed, then stopped, then turned and began to fire as fast as they could. They were all using their blaster rifles now. Luke felt the powerful physical energy of the blaster bolts eating away at his own strength, and knew he couldn't hold out for long. He didn't have to. Rallied by his show of strength, the Jedi Academy students rushed forwards just as Luke's shield collapsed. Unfortunately, this last charge of the twelve remaining students in the group fell apart as the soldiers poured blaster fire into their adversaries. Luke saw, with his own eyes, every remaining student in his counterattacking group fall to the ground. It was over, he knew. Luke scrambled desperately to his feet and began to run at top speed away from the soldiers. He had nearly reached a curve in the hallway and momentary safety when he felt the stun bolt hit him directly at the base of the head, sending lightning into every nerve in his body. He knew that it was over - somehow the soldiers had been good enough shooters to get a rare spinal shot with a stun blaster. The stun bolt had caught him right in the spinal column, and now his nervous system was fried to a crisp, most likely never to recover. This horrible thought was interrupted by the happier thought that they were taking him alive, and then Luke tumbled forwards. His face struck the floor with surprising violence and everything went black. The soldiers had silenced a counterattack by fifty people, if one included Cilghal, at a loss of exactly eight of their own. By the time the LADY LUCK landed on the pad outside the temple, Luke was unconscious and Cilghal and Tionne were dead. But Jacen and Jaina didn't know this. Nor did the two dozen students, all that were left in the entire Academy, who had joined them at the landing pad in hopes of escaping in the LADY LUCK. Lando knew it was bad as soon as he ran down the boarding ramp, followed by a dozen of his best security guards. "Where's Luke?" he shouted. "I don't know!" Jaina told him, crying. "He gave me his lightsaber and ran into the building!" "He told me to tell you that the fighting was in the building," Jacen said, struggling not to cry himself. "He said there were at least thirty enemy soldiers." Lando turned around and looked at his head security trooper, Kyle Tauro. "Bagging thirty of them might be pushing it," the man said, "but we can sure try." "Go to it," Lando said quietly. The twelve guards rushed past Lando, the twins, and the remaining Jedi students and entered the temple. Only seconds later, Lando heard a lot of shooting, and someone screaming. It sounded like Kyle's voice. Lando began to talk very fast as he took control of the situation. "Everyone, get in the LADY LUCK," he said. "We're getting out of here!" Unanimously agreeing with him, the students began to rush into the ship. "No!" Jaina cried. "I'm not leaving Uncle Luke behind!" "Me neither!" Jacen loudly agreed. Lando listened to the sounds of fighting in the temple for a few moments before replying. "I don't hear any lightsabers in there," he said at length. It took a few moments for the twins to understand the full implications of what Lando had said. Then Jacen began to cry. "No," Jaina said. "No. It's not possible." But her will to stay was gone. Lando was about to lead them quickly up into the LADY LUCK when twin streams of E-Web fire lanced out of the nearby forest and hit the LADY LUCK squarely in its port engine pod. Lando saw the highly explosive Tibanna gas leaking from its ruptured compartment moments before it ignited. He grabbed the twins and dragged them to the ground just before jagged chunks of the LADY LUCK and pieces of the Jedi students inside flew overhead. Looking through the translucent flames that had just replaced his ship, Lando could see two E-Web teams emerging from the forest, their forms made wavy and indistinct from the heat Lando was viewing them through. At that moment, the sounds of fighting inside the temple stopped. Somehow, Lando doubted that his security troops had been victorious. Something about Kyle's screaming told him that. Lando thought. At that moment, a saucer-shaped ship with two pincer-like protuberances sticking from the front dove out of the sky. For a moment, Lando thought it was the MILLENIUM FALCON, but then he saw that it was a YT-1700, not one of the older -1300 models. And this transport bore the roundel of The Depotian Navy. Lando had been to The Depot twice before, and he remembered that its army was supposed to be, troop for troop, the best in the galaxy. He hoped that this transport might have a few soldiers on it. The ventral quad laser turret and forward-mounted ultralight turbolaser on the YT-1700 opened up simultaneously as the ship swooped overhead. The soldiers who were on the landing pad were vaporized, but Lando and the twins were unharmed. Demonstrating a heavily modified thruster system, the YT- 1700 stopped completely in an instant and shot to the ground with almost comical force. Somehow, the landing gear snapped open in time to take the brunt of the impact. Seconds later, the hatches were opened and twelve armed soldiers rushed out, shooting. At that moment, Lando and the twins were caught in the middle of a firefight between thirty enemy troops and twelve Depotian soldiers. The Depot's troops ducked for cover, somehow finding some before they were shot, and returned fire with surprising accuracy. "Pull back! Retreat to the ship! And remember the prisoner!" an enemy soldier shouted after a short while. The enemy soldiers began to run away, disappearing around a corner in the Massassi temple. The Depotian soldiers followed, shooting all the way. The shooting lasted for three more minutes after the YT- 1700 took off and began to orbit the area, firing at the enemy soldiers. Two minutes later, the battle was over, at the cost of three Depotian casualties, none too serious. A man with corporal's insignia walked over to Lando and helped him up. "Lando Calrissian?" he asked. "Did you get them?" Lando asked the man without bothering to regard his question. "Sorry," the corporal replied. "About twenty of them escaped to orbit, where they had a transport waiting. They made it to hyperspace with a single prisoner." "Who?" "Luke Skywalker, we believe," the man said. "Now come on. We'll take you back to your mining station, where you can contact the New Republic." Aboard the YT-1700, Jaina sat on a bench seat bolted to the wall in the ship's main cabin. She wasn't scared or sad, not anymore. She was going home now. And better yet, she could feel Uncle Luke's presence, albeit weakly. He was a long ways away, and he wasn't feeling good, but Jaina knew he was alive. No, she wasn't sad - the time for mourning would come later. She just felt drained. On the table in the middle of the room, a private with a major blaster wound on his thigh was being treated by a Lance Corporal whose nametag said "Fallon" on it. Next to Fallon was a younger man, actually a boy, who seemed little older than Jaina herself. He was a handsome boy, muscular in the wiry way that those who have grown up without many amenities often are. His black hair was chopped short in the military style but grew thick. He had sparkling green eyes that seemed to Jaina to be very deep, the centerpiece of his entire face. His voice, from what Jaina heard of it, was soft and compassionate, laced with an accent she hadn't heard before. All the soldiers had the accent, but this young soldier-boy had it most of all. After a few minutes, the boy stepped back from the table and sat down on the bench seat next to Jaina. Feeling a little uncomfortable, Jaina looked to her right for Jacen, but he was asleep. "You're very lucky, you know," the boy said. It took Jaina a few moments to realize that the boy - Private Phife, according to the nametag on his uniform - was talking to her. "Excuse me?" she said. "We were bringing a man here to see Skywalker. We thought maybe that he and Skywalker could help us get to the bottom of a little mystery. Unfortunately the man died on the way here. Still, we figured that Skywalker might be able to learn something from the body, so we didn't turn back." Jaina managed a small smile, but didn't say anything. She couldn't think of anything to say. There was something fascinating about this black-haired boy with the green eyes and funny accent, something that captivated her. It would be childish to say she felt a connection between them, but foolish to deny that such a connection existed. There was some strange quality about him that Jaina could neither affirm nor deny. "Thank you," she said finally. "You saved us." After a few moments of comfortable silence, the boy smiled slightly. "Don't worry. We'll get you home - wherever that is for whoever you are." With that, he rose and walked towards the cockpit. Then Jaina realized that the connection between her and Private Phife was, at least a little, the same one she felt between herself and Jacen. It was similar, yet tangibly different. And as he left, Jaina realized part of caused this connection - Private Phife definitely had potential in the Force! She was about to tell Phife to wait, but at that moment the YT-1700 docked with Lando's mining station and the time the small talk that she suddenly desperately wanted to have with him was over. They were hustled off the craft, and the last she saw of Phife was a fleeting glimpse as he and another man carried the body of Kyrel Thoms to a waiting black bag. Somehow, Jaina knew it wouldn't be the last time she'd see that Private Phife. That thought gave her just the slightest bit of happiness on what was a very awful day. Coruscant Outside the Senate Room 1430 hours local (CST) The crowd of senators was still applauding Leia's two- minute speech. The speech hadn't been very good, but it was all Leia's weary mind had been able to come up with during the trip back home. Or rather, during the portion of the trip she didn't spend in reconstructive surgery. They weren't applauding the speech, though. Leia was fairly sure of that. For once, they were applauding her. Her bravery, and the bravery of those like her. There were a lot of loose ends to be tied up back at Typeria, especially how they would relocate the people to the planet's moons before the dust and debris kicked up by the destruction of the GAIDEN cooled the planet too far for human life. Leia suspected that Third Fleet would be ordered to remain in the area and use its transport capabilities for that task. Also, she was going to put Commander Siric Rendala in for the Arvel Crynyd Award personally. Getting that, the most prestigious of all New Republic medals, would be the least she could do to thank him. She would also go and personally speak with his family of a wife and three children sometime next week. Also, there was the matter of the twins. The last she'd heard, they were still on Yavin IV, kept there because she had not yet returned to Coruscant. Not that they'd been told about how everyone had given up Leia Organa Solo for the dead, nor how close they'd come to voting Domann Beruss into the Presidency, which would have permanently removed Leia from office. The vote would've taken place tomorrow. Leia would tell Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin that herself as soon as she had all three alone together. Then she, Han, and the children would all go out and do something as a family. It seemed like an eternity since her whole family had last been all in one place. Leia was about to allow herself to be escorted to her vehicle, which would take her home, when a very worried looking Kube Madre came running up at top speed. "Hi, Kube," Han, at Leia's side, said cordially to his old friend. Kube barely managed a smile. "Like I told you both personally earlier," the director of the War Department said, "I am elated to see you again. Words can't express my happiness. Unfortunately, Han and Leia, it's not over yet." A cold feeling came over Leia. Something about Kube's words made her look towards her brother Luke on Yavin IV - and she couldn't feel him. Kube grabbed Leia and Han by their shoulders and held them in place while he told them about the carnage at the Jedi Academy. By the time he had finished, Leia was crying and Han was in shock. "I've arranged for an escort to bring your children back to Coruscant via commercial spaceways," Kube said. "They'll be here tomorrow." "What about Luke?" Leia sobbed, hugging Han. "He's alive," Kube Madre said in the strong, confident voice of a born commander. "Luke Skywalker is alive and I believe we can get him back. SLIPS stations have tracked the shuttle that we believe is carrying him to well beyond the Outer Rim. God only knows what's out there, but I am personally assembling an elite commando team to, under my authority as Director of the War Department, go and get him back." Han replied for Leia, who was crying too hard to say anything. His voice was frail, almost meek, and it sounded almost like he was pleading. "Kube, I'm counting on you to get Luke back. I'm really counting on you." "I'm counting on myself," Kube said. "I shall be leading the commando mission personally." Leia looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said weakly. Then, with a little more strength: "Tomorrow, I wish to appear before the Senate." Leia's aide, Alole, who had been silent up until now, spoke. "On what subject, Leia?" "I wish to get the Senate to ratify a declaration of war against the New Imperium." With that, Leia and Han allowed themselves to be led to the waiting airspeeder, which would take them home. Alone with his thoughts, Kube Madre stood in the hallway and said a single sentence to a nonexistent audience. "You will see, Mattan Balao," Madre said slowly and strongly, "that we are quite unaccustomed to fear." ================================================================ On this note The NEW IMPERIUM: PEACE WITH A PRICE, my first work of fan fiction, ends. The war is not over yet, though. There are more heroes, villains, battles, and acts of bravery ahead in THE NEW IMPERIUM: POWER PLAYS. This is the story of how the New Republic gets its hands tied politically by the New Imperium, and how the fate of the Jedi lies solely in the hands of a small group of volunteer soldiers who have defected from the New Republic. And after that, the dramatic climax of the series, THE NEW IMPERIUM: UNACCUSTOMED TO FEAR will be written. The New Republic is politically paralyzed, and the New Imperium is preparing the knockout blow. Rale Erkholm learns to live life as a mercenary and pirate, General Sha'hazar fights battles in the land of politics instead of space, and a small group of haggard soldiers must bring an army to its knees to save the galaxy. Thanks for reading this, everyone. If you have anything at all to say about this story, or my future endeavors, E-mail me. My address is crazy8@wnclink.com. I'll reply as quickly as possible. If you want to post this story in its entirety on your site, do so. But try and drop me a line first - I'd like to see how much my story gets around. Thanks. --Greg ================================================================ DISCLAIMER: I, Greg Schutz, hereby state this: that my work, The New Imperium: Peace With A Price, is not breaking any current copyright laws; that I am not using this work to collect money for possession; and that I recognize that this work is based on characters and/or situations that are copyright-protected by Lucasfilm, LTD. This story is for entertainment purposes only.